


Nothing Safe In This World

by visionofblue (merelyafigment)



Series: Bad Moon Rising [3]
Category: Alias (TV), Oz (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crack Crossover, Dark, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-02-04
Updated: 2006-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:28:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26696740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merelyafigment/pseuds/visionofblue
Summary: Another tryst taking place in a universe where Sark and Keller hooked up for brief liasons. Keller decides to follow the rush and call a phone number on a card he kept.
Relationships: Chris Keller/Julian Sark, Chris Keller/Other(s)
Series: Bad Moon Rising [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1942621
Kudos: 1





	Nothing Safe In This World

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Dark. Still goes with the SerialKiller!Keller characterization.
> 
> Note: This fic always felt unfinished, and I never liked the abrupt ending. But I think it's done enough to pass as a finished ficlet, and as done as it will ever be.

Slipping a business card through his fingers, Chris sat casually on his bike, engine cold from the momentary lack of destination. That didn't usually stop him. He sometimes just let the roads choose. If you just started the engine and rode the heat, you'd find something. He was pausing, relaxing. Waiting for the buzz to hit. Goods fenced, wallet thicker and tucked away like the little baggie of something other than money that had sweetened the deal and the flow of his blood.

The business card wasn't worn, scrawled number not yet faded, even having ended up in his possession what seemed like weeks ago. He hadn't bothered to keep track. More than one, less than a change of months. It was the first time he'd pulled it out. It was still fresh and stiff in the languid play of his fingers, just crisply bent from being crammed in his pocket the whole time.

In his head, he tallied the age of the phone number by beds more than by days. 

An old girlfriend that still hated him enough that she couldn't take him back, but loved him enough that she'd brought him back to the mid-range hotel she was staying in while she gambled in town. 

Married chick that had brought him into a nice house, and panicked while he cut it close enough to her husband's return to see her sweat. 

That not-quite-bitter-yet stripper from the nudie bar that he had blended right into. 

Chris didn't feel like blending in right now. He wanted to stand out, to make marks. Even if for only one person. 

The card slipped through his fingers, edge sliding over his skin as he remembered appreciation that didn't give a fuck where his dark side began or ended. Something that made him not give a fuck the sex of the body he burrowed into. Blue eyes. An innocent looking sleeper that maybe never really slept at all. Bits and pieces flitted through his mind, un-orderly and flowing with the drug. 

Russian words and guns on bedside tables. Bruises that were probably gone, all of Chris's marks faded with them. Someone smart enough to get Chris's last name and speak with confident professional knowledge, yet still so young looking, even in memory. So familiar underneath. Youthful looks only deceived so much, those blue eyes belonged to a body that must really have been less than twenty-five. But with enough skill and burning darkness to match up with Chris. 

How young had Chris been when he looked like that? What had he been?

This. He'd been sliding to this his whole life. Made for it, growing accustomed to the feel. After Lardner, it had been cemented. Maybe Julian had a Vern that had set him in that confident stone too.

Chris's lazy backwards lean finally shifted to readiness.

**

Keller woke up in another posh hotel, head throbbing more quietly than he would've expected. Warm weight barely dipped the bed beside him. He opened only slightly scratchy eyes after rubbing his face with a hearty groan. Not too bad of a hangover, all things considered. That shit he'd been on was good. The little bottles from the mini-bar, now strewn all over the nice plush carpet, had only made it better. 

Chris rolled his neck, stretching a little, feeling the click of sinew and bone, before taking a bleary-eyed survey of the room. They'd broken some of the expensively delicate touches into worthless shards. It made the slight ache in his head that much more amusing.

Knew without looking, remembered even through the haze, that Julian was the weight next to him, the lean naked body brushing his. Both of them on their backs, legs kicked into each other's space a little, consuming the whole bed. Jules had that false, stolen innocent look to him again. The debauched sleeping angel who was all intelligent eyes, long precise words, whimpers, growls, and bracing wiry strength when he was awake.

His little alley boy hadn't done the rest of the baggie still in Keller's coat. He hadn't trusted it. Chris had been able to tell, even if he hadn't said so. He hadn't judged either though. Leaving the smaller mixed bottles of the minibar to Chris, Jules had grasped a bottle of wine instead. Something probably expensive. Guzzled down straight from the bottle, head thrown back with relish, instead of rolled around and sniffed at in a glass. Chris remembered the line of Julian's throat working with the somehow elegant gulps sliding down it, the hungry bob of Adam's apple behind delicate skin.

Chris had given himself over to the blur and buzz in his veins. The overindulgence. Always chasing after the rush. Hell, if he hadn't been, he wouldn't have come here in the first place.

How had he gotten here anyway?

Oh right.

Little baggie. Rush. 

He'd parked at a bar and used their pay phone to call the number on the business card. Good thing he'd been at a bar, too. The cell phone had netted him the voice of a machine instead of a person. Chris almost hadn't left a message. But he'd looked around the bar and seen nothing but boring dregs. Old alcoholics with grey hair, baseball caps, and neglected houses, passed out on wet spots on the bar.

He hadn't even left his name, just the number, deciding to play. If Jules recognized his voice, and called back before he finished his first two cheap shots, then he'd tangle with the man again. If not, well, there were other bars. He thought he'd spotted a strip club on his travels earlier.

The phone had rung as he was striding towards the door.

Chris stretched again, feeling a little echo of ache in his muscles. He smoothly crowded Julian's side of the bed. All it got him was a quirk of crooked lip as Julian pulled his never-really-sleeping trick again, eyes opening smoothly, full of blue clarity, his deeply even breaths registering no change.

Chris ran a possessive hand over one long arm, firmly encompassing flesh that had been his playground last night. 

"Buon giorno, avete dormito bene?" Julian easily pressed along Chris's domination of the space with the melodically crisp spill of words. "È freddo."

Chris blinked, scraped his nails over one long lean side. He got the first two words...

"Italian." Julian informed him.

Chris growled softly, taking control of that mouth to quiet it. Too damn awake. The sheets were thrown back as Chris laid siege to that body with his own, crawling powerfully on top of Julian without asking. Julian didn't stop him. Never did. Taking from that mouth, rubbing down against firm muscle. Just enough to spark that blaze and feel its lick along his body, before he rolled off, leaving Julian panting lightly, lips parted.

He surveyed the land he'd claimed, vision clearer. The stroke of his hand followed his gaze when he felt like it, gifting Julian with brief random touch before sliding back away. Most of later that night, once he'd gotten back to this new lush hotel and started littering glass bottles, was more of a fiery blur. Like going over 100mph over a high bridge on his bike. All you were left with afterwards was the hot fading memory of the dangerously free rush, and a yearning to grab it back.

The only bruises on that body this time belonged to Chris. He was particularly proud of a smooth red brand marring one graceful pale wrist. Rope burn. 

His boy had had rope sitting out, he remembered that much. He also remembered getting the impression that it wasn't actually there for him, it just happened to be something needed by Jules for another reason.

That other wrist was clean and unblemished. Well...not entirely. That was definitely a bite mark. Julian had only let him restrain one wrist, he remembered that too. Chris had...protested... that decision a little, just because he could. That memory was also nestled there, making Chris grin now as Julian had at the time.

Julian took the opportunity to snag his mouth for another playfully biting kiss, throwing one leg back over Chris's. Those hands could dig in too, scratching over his ribs in a smooth burn of memory. Chris trapped that sore wrist in his grip, just because he could.

Now this was a nice way to wake up. Traces of grabbing heat and foggy intensity, keeping that mouth quiet with the challenge of his own. Chris was half hard and half wrestling Julian into the soft mattress when he suddenly disengaged. Again.

His dick twitched, spurred on by the sight of bruised skin and reddened lips, and the softest noise of loss that Julian had not quite hidden. Chris smirked and stood up, leaving the warm, dirty tangle of sheets behind him.

"Do you have some other pressing engagement?" The words were carefully calm and cool, but still carrying that heated desire. Julian showing just enough need to make Chris's dick harder.

"Shower." Chris said, voice slipping low in an invitation that issued a challenge. He wanted to clear his foggy head, get rid of some of the grit. He'd had enough fun with it last night, and it was time to get a nice clean slate.

Julian slipped out of the bed after him, still holding on to his economical grace, even as his cock pointedly declared his true focus.

*

It was a hell of a nice shower for a hotel. No dull institutional floor in a cramped stall. This had some room, and glass walls that just begged to have skin pressed up against them.

At the moment though, Chris's companion was kneeling on the much nicer tiles. Julian was doing a wonderful job being hotter and wetter than the water pounding on Chris's back. 

Chris's hands slipped over drenched skin. Slick slide over strong, lean shoulders to graze the curve of Julian's neck with his fingers. Slipping his palms around that neck, Chris rubbed his thumb over Jules's Adam's apple, pressing lightly. Just to feel the shiver buried there from the suck, before he let up. Hands moving idly as his head tilted back, lost in that sweet expert suction. 

The loss of it jerked his gaze down.

Blue eyes blinking up at him, even Julian couldn't stay coolly composed with dripping lashes. Keller had learned enough about the man to know that the inconvenience of water droplets interrupting his steady gaze probably annoyed him. 

"Remember, let's not go breaking anything." A gently amused reminder left that now woefully empty mouth.

Chris blinked down at him, thrown by the pull of his now untouched cock, the teasing splatter of warm water only making his need worse. He didn't care that he'd given over control of his mind to this at all. "What?"

Blue eyes somehow managed to gesture to the placement of Chris's hands. Keller laughed softly. Jules was making sure Chris wouldn't get dangerous and twitchy again.

"Didn't cross my mind." Chris said with slick faked innocence, grin all sharp teasing edges again. Playing at danger and lies to amuse Julian, when actually he was telling the truth for once. "Now that you've stopped, though…" Another tease of danger.

"Mutually assured destruction." Julian said pointedly, grin tugging at the corner of his lips before that mouth stretched in the best possible way --obscenely-- as it slipped back over his cock.

Being taken back into that sucking heat pulled a groan from Chris's throat. He had no fucking clue what Julian had meant, but he didn't much care at the moment either. He got a demonstration right afterwards, enough to figure it out in a snap.

Julian's firmly graceful hands slid up the back of his calves, settling on a tickling touch on the back of his knees. Gentle tug. Just enough to make Chris feel the brief dipping threat of lost stability, the hint of his knees buckling from behind, and the slippery unsteady purchase of his feet, before those hands slid a few inches up to safety on the back of his thighs. 

Jules winked up at him, no more pauses of that hot suck, feeding Chris's ache without a stutter.

Ah. 'You snap my neck -- I make you fall, snapping yours.' He got it now. It made his grin grow wider. He bet Julian was just fast enough to have a chance of pulling it off, too.

Keller moved his hands to put that mind at rest -- after one last brush of the pads of his thumbs. He may have made sure to trail his fingers roughly all the way up that delicate neck before burying in wet hair. Dirty blonde made darker by the water, hints of soft curls flattened down.

That mouth slipped away once more. Chris groaned again, the bad kind, his hips bucking after that mouth, fingers tightening in hair as he stared back down.

What the fuck was it now? He was losing his patience. Those hands were still curled around the back of his thighs warmly though, fingers digging and scraping across the wet sheen. 

"See how pleasant things can be when one behaves and I don't have to be concerned about my immediate safety?" Alley boy was teasing him again.

"You stopped." Chris pointed out with another sharp-toothed smile and the strong flex of his hands over Julian's scalp.

Julian just grinned, one corner of that crooked mouth quirking joyfully… before swallowing him whole. Slick slide of heat not stopping, all the way in to feel the delicious squeeze of that throat around him.

Oh fuck yes. 

All was forgiven.

*

From the shower, they slipped right back to the bed that was taking up most of the room with its rumpled emptiness. Clean bodies on dirty sheets, but Chris couldn't really see that as bad. As much as he'd wanted a shower, sex was a pretty good fucking smell that he didn't mind having on him. It was even more fun earning it.

_Damp_ clean bodies on dirty sheets. Chris tongued a long line over the curve of Julian's throat, slipping across his collarbone. Chasing water drops. 

They'd left small puddles on the slickly clean bathroom floor, having barely brushed those thick towels over skin before they'd gotten distracted. He had one hand spanning a sharp hip, tugging Julian closer with a kiss that tasted like the hotel's toothpaste, before sliding him away and pressing him firmly down into the mattress.

Wasn't quite ready for another round. 

Well, Chris wasn't. Julian still hadn't finished his before they'd been slipping and sticking together out of the bathroom. Chris was drawing it out until those blue eyes were painfully dark. Until Julian was pressing into his every touch with a needful tremble of his hips.

Chris took mercy on him. Partially. 

Glide of his fingertips over that smooth hard cock, he kept the sheets thrown back (they were just clinging to wet skin anyway) so he could look past his boy's bruises and temporary marks. Surveying things that had cut deep enough to outlast hangovers, brawls, and wild vacations. Julian bit his lip at the tease of relief, fingers digging into sheets and the small of Chris's back. 

Julian was laid out for perusal on his back, restraining himself from thrusting. The shiver of need, of wanting to chase the feather light tease of touch was obvious as Chris stayed propped half up on a pillow on his side. He needed to touch with both hands, loom over that body to steal the view.

He recognized the gunshot scar, and the occasional thin pale line that would probably fade completely into nothingness given enough years. Probably brushes with knives. But that nicely jagged scar on Julian's thigh, that was harder to tell. Could be any number of things. He decided he wanted to know. Maybe he just wanted to make Julian tell him. To see if he would give it up. Chris didn't really care much about the answer itself beyond idle curiosity.

He watched that small shiver under the trail of his fingers, gliding over the scar for barely a second, before he slid right into a firmer touch, wrapping his hand around firm muscle with a squeeze that Julian probably wished was directed elsewhere. "What the hell did this?"

The corner of that crooked lip tugged up again, those eyes bright with heat. Like he was remembering a lover, not an injury. "Pickaxe." He gave it up easy, that fondness for it coating the word, even as the hitch of his breath was full of unvoiced begging.

"Pickaxe?" Chris asked with his eyebrows raised. Well, that was fucking new. "You go mountain climbing and piss somebody off?"

Julian laughed softly at the joke, breathless. "Not climbing, no. I profoundly upset a rather beautiful woman."

"One who's good with a pickaxe?" Chris mused idly with another firm grip, this one finally in the right place. 

Time for his reward. Chris's firm hand encircling that damp, hard strain. Julian gasped, surging up for a kiss, hips thrusting with sweet desperation into his grip, giving his body over to the relief. To Chris.

Chris let himself get momentarily caught.

*

He didn't leave this time. The urge wasn't quite scratching under his skin yet. Staying to use up that luxurious hotel room, and that tireless body, seemed like a better plan instead. 

They avoided, but didn't clean up, the empty bottles, the broken pieces of a vase that had been carelessly knocked off the small accent table, and the shattered glass from the framed art someone had slammed into last night. Judging by the stinging soreness to his back, it may have been him. But the red scratches over Julian's back offered another possible scenario.

Chris had been hungry, and Julian had used that British accent on the phone without even being asked, ordering 'brunch'. There was a dining table in the other room of the suite, but they brought crumbs to the bed instead. 

Apparently, if you tipped well enough, the guys delivering room service would refrain from raising an eyebrow at bruised naked men and partially destroyed rooms. One of the perks of having spare cash.

They'd eaten in bed, but that nice polished wooden table had been used anyway, for something far more important than eating. Afterwards, Chris had taken the bed for his own use, not waiting to see if Julian followed. Left him panting on the table, sprawled with sweat and grace, going for a catnap with only a brief appreciative glance back. 

He woke up to sole ownership of the bed, but the white rumpled canvas he wasn't filling up was still warm, only recently vacated. Chris lounged on his back, trailing a hand over his stomach, looking over to see the blonde with the tousled hair clicking away on a laptop at the elegant desk provided in the bedroom, not quite leaning back in his chair. Body language warmly relaxed and pleased, belying the eyes sharply focused on the screen.

Maybe _this_ was why his hair looked like that. Maybe it wasn't hours spent getting that effortless just rolled out of bed after a nice fuck look in the mirror, but actual fucking. Julian looked completely comfortable and focused on business, even though he was still naked. He wore the atmosphere, his confidence, like he usually wore those well-tailored clothes. Chris had the feeling this was a man who rarely ever looked really _naked_. Never exposed in the true sense of being stripped down bare and hanging in the breeze. 

He had the brief urge to see him that way. Make him that way. 

He'd caught glimpses of it, when they fucked. Real unbridled feeling. Raw need. The real man behind the laughable name that didn’t quite fit and the smooth words that spoke far more than one language. Maybe that's why Chris kept being called to him. Why he'd come back after all this time. Slipped under that skin over and over all day. 

Keller knew though, truly stripping Julian bare wouldn't be accomplished today. It would take work, be a challenge. One he didn't have the energy or inclination for at the moment. Stripping alley boy down would take dedication that Chris was just too damn lazily sated for right now.

Almost time to go. Felt the restlessness stir under his skin, that need to move again, as he decided to get up and pry that blue-gazed attention away from the laptop first. Just to prove that he could. He could _take take take_ all day. Make that strangely skilled young man give over to him. Heat that skin with his touch, make those eyes dilate, catch that determined focused gaze and keep it on him, unable to look away.

Blue eyes only flicked over for a second at his movement as he slowly stood up, letting the sheet fall away. 

Chris would force it back on him. Fuck that tiny screen and the tap of deft fingers. It looked pretty important, judging by Julian's concentration. 

Too bad.

*

Sark was mildly sore and bruised, lounging in the high-backed, carved wooden chair like it wasn't a hard cold brace rubbing against his bare skin. If he chose, he need only be aware of the soreness of his body in the academic sense, having long ago learned to compartmentalize such mild pain and discomfort and register it only in a clinical manner. 

For him, it could be easy as keeping a careful eye on the damage done to someone else. 

_A bruise this color means deep tissue damage. Drag the tip of this blade across here, and they'll live. Scream, but live. They can still type if you break this bone. The blood flow from a puncture here will be enough to scare them, but they will maintain consciousness. Too much more and they'll die._

He knew how much his own body could withstand in the same way, keeping an assessing eye on it in business or pleasure.

He didn't have to really _feel_ it fully. He could focus past it. He chose not to.

You ignored pain as much as possible while conducting business, enabling you to achieve your objective, whatever that happened to be. Common sense, basic survival skill, it was a requirement.

This was different. This was his. 

He'd enjoyed each bruise, sore muscle, and burning scratch across his skin. Feeling it completely, _enjoying_ it, was the whole point. Anticipation, bright experience, and the lingering aftermath. The thin slices across his skin from the glass that had accidentally broken against his back when he'd been slammed into it stung nicely as he rested in the chair.

He didn’t bother putting clothes back on yet. No need. He had them close by, in case he needed to move quickly, and that was enough.

He heard Christopher stir as he woke up. He'd heard the change in breath, from sleeping to waking, even before that. 

Sark's gaze slid from his screen, leaving work behind to take in the shift of skin and strength. The sheet pulled away. Chris let it. Exposing tantalizing glimpses on purpose. 

The screen changed to bland, misleading documents with a simple keystroke. There were things Chris couldn't be allowed to see. He wasn't part of the world on Sark's laptop, he'd done a thorough check. Christopher Keller was a different sort of danger. That still wasn't any reason to become lax with security. 

Mr. Keller was what he appeared to be. Even if Sark was one of the few that could see what was behind the charm. He'd been drawn in by what was really there, not just by what was on that beautifully manipulative surface most people would be ensnared by.

He'd seen it even that first night, in that nameless smoky crowded bar. He'd known just what part to play to get Chris's attention, his true attention, and lure him away into privacy. He'd also known that that role wouldn't hold his interest for very long, shedding his alias easily once they were alone and Chris had let his true self out as well. 

Sark was holding his interest now, though. Without being anything other than what he was.

***

End

**Author's Note:**

> Bad Internet Translations:  
> Buon giorno, avete dormito bene? = Good day, have you slept well?
> 
> È freddo. = It's cold.


End file.
